Buenos Aires, Argentina
Congratulations are in order for my friend Ronald Shakespear, who makes not infrequent appearances here on this blog—he’s just hit 69! (Not to worry, old man… soixante-neuf is a fine number indeed).
Painting by Andrew Lewis… with some help from Michelangelo.
Atlanta, Georgia
“Here is another item to add to my list of “things I didn’t know had a name:” bandit signs. In case you, like me, are unfamiliar with the term, bandit signs are those dubious-looking advertisements that dot the country’s commuter roads, promising fast money, easy weight loss, and painless hair removal. Usually tacked to telephone poles or stoplights, bandit signs are gloomy but reliable indicators of our collective anxieties. Yet where some see desperation, the Atlanta-based artist John Morse sees inspiration.
Last month, Morse installed five hundred of his very own bandit signs at busy intersections across Atlanta. However, his signs came with a unique twist: they were written in the form of a haiku, the traditional Japanese poem that consists of seventeen syllables when written in English. Instead of images of nature and the changing seasons, Morse’s poems allude to cash-for-gold schemes and singles meet-ups. They are, as he explains, comments on the “consumerist allure” implicit in bandit signs…”
[from a post last week by Meredith Blake in The New Yorker]
Watch a great little video about John Morse and his roadside haiku installations on Vimeo here (2:29). If you find yourself in the Atlanta region, you can use this Google map to find hundreds of the signs (Morse has mapped all of their locations).
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Cartoon by Bruce Mckinnon for the Chronicle-Herald (Halifax, Canada); thanks to friend Keith Leinweber for the link.
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As a child, I was raised and imbued with fundamental Christianity (which I’m more than a little ashamed to admit at times like this—though thankfully my parents’ and their community’s focus was primarily on love, compassion, tolerance, and nonviolence). The fanatical antics of Floridian pastor Terry Jones are right up there with the “crusade(r) mentality” of Christendom that has long since driven me to discard all but the most basic tenets of faith.
Van Nuys, California
Older, devout design practitioners will no doubt be able to relate to these Patron Saints of Graphic Design (St. Exacto, St. Typo, St. Pixela)… more here.
(Thanks to Bob Roach for the link).
(click on image for larger size—found here)
Warstein, Germany
A nude climber stuck halfway up a cliff face in the pitch dark had to phone German police officers, who shone a spotlight on him so he could find handholds to lower himself back down, they said Friday.
The 47-year-old man was unable to explain why he had drunkenly stripped off at dusk on Thursday, packed all his clothes in his rucksack and headed up the 40-metre quarry wall in Warstein, 100 kilometres east of Düsseldorf.
Clinging to a ledge, he became too weak to proceed and could not get dressed for fear of falling. Hours later, becoming both very cold and sober, he managed to get out his mobile phone and contact police.
Police took him to hospital as a precaution, in case he had suffered from “exposure.”
Could happen to anyone… though methinks there’s a cautionary tale in there somewhere. Source: the Alpine Club of Canada newletter (thankfully without accompanying imagery).
